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By Frank Licea

CTO & Co-Founder

Frank Licea is the CTO & Co-Founder of Howdy.com, a groundbreaking platform revolutionizing outsourcing for US companies, backed by Y Combinator (W21), Greycroft, and Obvious. Fueled by frustration with the traditional outsourcing model, Frank and his co-founder sought to transform the industry. They secured significant investment from YCombinator, aiming to offer competitive salaries, insurance benefits, and a genuine full-time experience for remote professionals.

Howdy.com integrates remote software experts into teams, bridging Silicon Valley and Latin American talent. Frank’s visionary leadership, backed by 18 years of experience, continues to reshape the outsourcing landscape, allowing companies to access top talent seamlessly.

Content

    AI is creating a permanent underclass of engineers.

    There’s a lot of talk about AI taking over software engineering jobs, but that’s not exactly what's happening.

    A recent study found that AI coding tools like GitHub Copilot are making software engineers more productive, with an average increase of 26% in completed tasks. This boost is more pronounced among junior engineers, who show higher adoption rates and significantly greater productivity gains compared to their senior counterparts.

    Here’s the math: juniors are producing code faster than ever, but the study shows that senior engineers aren’t experiencing the same level of productivity boost. This imbalance can lead to a bottleneck where code is produced faster than it can be reviewed and integrated. Imagine a situation where juniors increase their output by 50%, but seniors only improve their review capacity by 25% because they have to double-check AI-generated code. Assuming that Senior engineers review all the work done by Jr. Engineers, then the result is a bottleneck — code piles up waiting for review, slowing down the workflow or forcing code through without proper checks. Neither option is ideal.

    This dynamic creates a real problem. Juniors are leaning heavily on AI to produce more code, but they're not developing the deeper skills needed to advance into senior roles. Meanwhile, there aren’t enough senior engineers to handle the increased volume of code. This mismatch not only affects workflow dynamics but also stalls the professional growth of junior engineers.
    We're looking at the rise of two distinct groups:

    • AI Code Producers: Juniors who stay stuck as juniors because they rely on AI for most of their work and miss out on the experiences that build deeper expertise.
    • True Seniors: A shrinking group of engineers who can review and guide the AI-generated code safely into production for the long term.

    So no, AI isn’t replacing software engineers. It's creating a divide. And the concerning part? We might end up with a permanent gap where one group is stuck in junior roles with high output but limited growth, while the other group becomes rarer and more overwhelmed with the responsibility of maintaining quality.

Is AI Replacing Software Engineers?

Artificial Intelligence might not be replacing software engineers, but it is creating a concerning divide between junior and senior devs.

Updated on: Dec 6, 2024
Published on: Sep 19, 2024

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Is AI Replacing Software Engineers? featured image

AI is creating a permanent underclass of engineers.

There’s a lot of talk about AI taking over software engineering jobs, but that’s not exactly what's happening.

A recent study found that AI coding tools like GitHub Copilot are making software engineers more productive, with an average increase of 26% in completed tasks. This boost is more pronounced among junior engineers, who show higher adoption rates and significantly greater productivity gains compared to their senior counterparts.

Here’s the math: juniors are producing code faster than ever, but the study shows that senior engineers aren’t experiencing the same level of productivity boost. This imbalance can lead to a bottleneck where code is produced faster than it can be reviewed and integrated. Imagine a situation where juniors increase their output by 50%, but seniors only improve their review capacity by 25% because they have to double-check AI-generated code. Assuming that Senior engineers review all the work done by Jr. Engineers, then the result is a bottleneck — code piles up waiting for review, slowing down the workflow or forcing code through without proper checks. Neither option is ideal.

This dynamic creates a real problem. Juniors are leaning heavily on AI to produce more code, but they're not developing the deeper skills needed to advance into senior roles. Meanwhile, there aren’t enough senior engineers to handle the increased volume of code. This mismatch not only affects workflow dynamics but also stalls the professional growth of junior engineers.
We're looking at the rise of two distinct groups:

  • AI Code Producers: Juniors who stay stuck as juniors because they rely on AI for most of their work and miss out on the experiences that build deeper expertise.
  • True Seniors: A shrinking group of engineers who can review and guide the AI-generated code safely into production for the long term.

So no, AI isn’t replacing software engineers. It's creating a divide. And the concerning part? We might end up with a permanent gap where one group is stuck in junior roles with high output but limited growth, while the other group becomes rarer and more overwhelmed with the responsibility of maintaining quality.

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